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A DAY IN THE LIFE
OF ERIC LINDSTROM
Copyright 2008 www.tombraiderchronicles.com
[ May 23rd 2008 ]
Eric
Lindstrom, Creative Director for Crystal Dynamics,
kicks off a brand new series focusing on a behind-the-scenes
look at developing Tomb
Raider Underworld. Eric has been instrumental
in the rejuvenation of the Tomb
Raider franchise, and below are his words
on his daily activities.
"I
was going to describe the events of Monday, May
5th as a typical day, but it was far from typical
because of what happened over the weekend. But
there is almost no such thing as a typical day
in my job really, so here it is anyway.
"I
had a lot of work pile up last week, as usual,
because I never have ten minutes in a row to myself
when I’m at the office. With my wife out of town
and my kids busy with their own plans, I came
home with only two aims in mind. First, catch
up on work (yes, Lara comes home with me a lot),
and second, when I needed breaks I would work
on another origami model – I’m working on folding
a model of every creature in Underworld.
"I
don’t invent models, I only use existing patterns,
but because there are creatures in Underworld
that we’ve invented, I’ll have to start improvising
soon. Not this weekend, though, as I was going
to make a black panther, which turned out to be
ironic because of what happened to keep me away
from both Lara and origami.
"My
stepson came home Saturday with a two-week-old
kitten that he’d found alone in a bush. Jet black
and less than a quarter of a kilo. If you’ve never
seen a kitten that young, they’re smaller than
you think. (And it just peed on me while I used
one finger to type the previous sentence.) The
shelter was going to euthanize it if we left it
– kittens that young need bottle feeding and too
much care, so that was that.
"I
came to work Monday morning with very little sleep
– even at night feeding has to happen every couple
hours – plus a cardboard box holding a kitten
that didn’t know how to suckle but just swallowed
drops of formula I dribbled into her mouth. (Now
she’s asleep in my lap – I’ll clean up later.)
"The
morning would have been hasty catching up on email
except for people hearing squeaking from my cube
– she’s pretty loud for such a small thing. Then
it was feeding time, which ended in time for our
Leads Meeting. (Damnit, she moved and now I’m
holding her from falling with my right hand so
I’m typing with my left hand…and I’m not left-handed…)
"The
Leads Meeting is an hour of discussing status
of interdisciplinary issues, which was mostly
about the upcoming Press Demo next week – I don’t
know offhand how long it will be before reports
on that Demo will come out, or I’d say. It’s going
to be great but as always there are, as we say,
a lot of parts on the floor that we still need
to put together to make it come alive.
"Luckily
the kitten (I haven’t named her – there are kids
involved so the politics of naming her will be
interesting and complex) sleeps through lunch
so I can eat my hastily packed sandwich and junk
from the vending machine. (There, I put her back
in her box to sleep so I can type normally again.)
"After
lunch, I carry my kitten-in-a-box down the hall
to meet with Toby and Forest, who direct and produce
our cinematics, to go over progress on cut scenes
and music. There’s plenty left to do but I finished
the script long ago and they know what they’re
doing and have advanced to a stage where I pretty
much wave them on with only a few comments here
and there.
"I’m
very happy with the music coming into the game,
and it’s a struggle because the sound design is
so strong, and I like the mood and feel of strong
ambience and light score, that I often need to
choose between great music and great ambient sound
design. It’s a good problem to have, and I like
having the option to go subtle, which is something
you can only do when the quality is high.
"Then
I go talk to Harley, the Lead Designer, and go
over some combat reviews. We’re at the point where
we are iterating on specific combat setups as
a way of making the enemies better and better.
We also talk about issues of ammunition, weapon
balancing, and how to get the kitten to defecate.
Yes, cats this young don’t even relieve themselves
without help, but I won’t explain here – google
it if you’re interested.
"Today
is our monthly development update meeting with
the Directors and General Manager of Crystal Dynamics,
so I leave my kitten with Harley to care for and
go into a room where the Alex, the Project Producer,
describes our current Alpha status, steps to Beta,
and how well we’re tracking to schedule. We’re
tracking well in most categories, but Next Gen
– or Current Gen, as we are trying to get ourselves
to say – is complex so we have to be wary about
everything even when it seems to be going just
fine.
"I
don’t emerge from this room for a few hours, and
I find the kitten has changed hands among the
producers multiple times and I have no idea how
much or if she has eaten. Oh well, she’ll tell
me herself soon enough – she’s very vocal.
"I
end the day talking with Alex about a number of
staffing issues. As you progress towards Beta,
people shuffle around as it becomes clear which
areas need more creative work and what is taking
care of itself. Then I pile the kitten into the
car for the long drive home – nearly an hour with
traffic. If it sounds like what I do as Creative
Director is mostly management, that’s because
I couldn’t be specific about the content or details,
and today was more of a management day that happens
from time to time. Most of my time is spent going
over different aspects of the game with various
people on the team, deciding together whether
it should play like this or that, whether it should
look like this or that.
"On
other days it’s cameras, or puzzle layout, or
visual effects, and on and on. Most of my time
now is spent talking about closing out the rest
of the creative elements needed to reach Beta,
when we can concentrate on fixing all the bugs
and polishing everything."
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